At a campaign rally on the outskirts of New Delhi last year, floodlights cast a glare over a crowd of thousands, illuminating a sea of peaked, white Gandhi caps.
The hats were associated with India's independence fighters, but made a comeback as an anti-corruption movement surged across India in 2011. When I saw them that night, glowing in the darkness at a time when Indian politics had appeared to reach a corrupted nadir, it seemed fitting that a party of anti-corruption rabble-rousers had revived them – and added a broom symbol to the side, both for the benefit of illiterate voters and to showcase their intent to sweep away the rotten core of Indian politics.
There was reason for optimism. The Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party had just stunned India by winning 28 of 70 seats in the 2013 Delhi state assembly elections and ousting the Indian National Congress after more than a decade in power. Electricity and water bills fell. Cooking gas subsidies increased. And then, after 49 turbulent days in power, the AAP's chief Arvind Kejriwal – a former tax collector – quit to run nationally.
He gambled it all but was crushed, alongside Congress, beneath the Bharatiya Janata Party juggernaut. Of India's 543 legislative seats, AAP won only four – all of them in Punjab. The BJP won a majority.
Now, it's time for a dramatic rematch.
A new round of Delhi elections takes place on Feb. 7. The mighty BJP versus the underdog AAP. And in this contest, the AAP might actually emerge triumphant with Mr. Kejriwal as the capital's prominent chief minister – in a development that would have far-reaching consequences.
Since becoming Prime Minister last year, Narendra Modi and a well-oiled BJP machine have scored a number of state-level victories across India. For Mr. Modi, controlling India's state governments is crucial to implementing the economic reforms at the core of his promise to bring prosperity to India. New Delhi's 70 seats are a highly visible part of this puzzle.
But opinion polls show AAP in the lead, predicted to win even more seats than before, and possibly as many as 41.
That's why the campaigning has gotten so intense. The BJP appointed as its local leader Kiran Bedi, a former Indian Police Service officer who ruled over the capital's Tihar Jail and rose alongside Mr. Kejriwal in India's anti-corruption movement. But the anti-graft crowd now view her as turncoat, while some in the RSS – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu nationalist group that guides the BJP – view her as an outsider. Worried, the BJP has enlisted big names to campaign for her, from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to Mr. Modi himself.
The tension has resulted in predictable mudslinging. An early critic of the so-called "black money" sloshing around Indian politics, the AAP posted its donors online – and was subsequently attacked by the BJP for corruption. Mr. Kejriwal responded that the BJP should have him arrested if the allegations are true. Mr. Modi thundered that Mr. Kejriwal had "crossed all limits of shamelessness."
In the working-class areas of Delhi last year, almost everyone I spoke to was planning to vote for the AAP. The BJP's lofty statements about development meant less than AAP's track record of directly alleviating their poverty. AAP's absence of seats in New Delhi was suprising. But the general sentiment – at least among the well-to-do – was that, with slowing economic growth, India didn't want an unpredictable APP wielding power at the national level. "I will probably vote for Modi, but my heart is with AAP," one middle-class woman told me.
With Mr. Modi now firmly in control at the centre, poor voters in New Delhi may feel comfortable enough to give AAP another chance. Mr. Kejriwal, after all, has promised to build public toilets, cut electricity bills and launch free citywide WiFi, among other things.
For Mr. Modi, Mr. Kejriwal's triumph would be one of the most serious setbacks to the BJP's political agenda. It would result in a high-profile critic running the capital. Mr. Kejriwal, if elected, would likely use his position to remind voters of India's democratic underbelly, as well as employ the broad powers of a chief minister to enact pro-poor policies that may lack subtlety, but which would make Mr. Modi's gradual, high-level reforms look feeble in comparison.
For India's dispirited opposition parties, an AAP victory in New Delhi would be a glimmer of success in the dark days that have followed the BJP's victory last year.